Monsters Within
by PoppySam
Summary: If there's one thing Harry is passionate about, it's a mystery, and Ron's sudden disappearance near a derelict Manor House on the border of the Forbidden Forest is just that.


_I'm writing this story purely because there are so little Harry/Fenrir fics out there, which is a criminal offence in my book. This will not follow the usual storyline in many ways, for example: Fenrir does not live naked in a forest running around with other (were)wolves, and Harry is not going to roll over on his back for Fenrir within a few days and pop out pups at will. This was loosely inspired by Disney's 'Beauty and the Beast'. This first chapter is quite short, but don't fret! It's just a taster of what is to come :) Enjoy!_

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Harry Potter's life was pleasantly simple after the Great War ended, or so he told himself. Ron had said 'boring', whilst Hermione had concluded 'unfulfilling and unstimulating', but Harry had ignored their daily requests for him to get up and do something meaningful with his life, instead choosing to potter about in his own time as it pleased him. It seemed that his lack of enthusiasm for work had followed him from the classroom, as he just could not bring himself to get a steady job. Not that he needed one though, if the dusty pile of gold stashed away in Gringotts Bank was anything to go by.

No, Harry was really not interested in working 9 til 5, nor was he interested in dressing up in a stuffy suit robe (much like the ones he had been forced into time and time again to attend interviews, formal dinners and parties) and reeling off a list pointless and embellished skills to a ministerial fatcat who was only interested in his name. He had made the mistake once before: just as he was about to sign at the bottom of a Training List for the Auror Department, he heard a not-so-subtle whisper of "We've got Harry Potter!" in the corridor behind him, causing him to feign a vomiting illness and run for the exit before he could write his name. So, whilst Ron had graduated from training to become a fully fledged Auror, and Hermione had been almost instantly accepted into Hogwarts as the new Gryffindor head of house and Muggle Studies teacher, Harry had wandered aimlessly from job to job.

His first job after school was in the Muggle world three years after he stepped over the boundaries of Hogwarts on that fateful day. He had chosen to intregrate himself once more into Muggle society, not because he wanted to hide from magic or forget his past, but because the Wizarding world were still hugely obsessed about the Boy-who-Lived. He had always hated the fame that he felt he had done nothing to warrant, and without the shielding confinement of Albus Dumbledore and Hogwarts to hide him he had found it very difficult facing the public limelight. At least in school, the headlines of the Daily Prophet had seemed a world away; a world that had thrown open its doors for an adult Harry to reluctantly enter. The media had taken a long to time to stop printing stories about Harry in at least the first five pages of whichever magazine or newspaper he cared to pick up and peruse, each headline more intriguing than the last to make up for the lack of newsworthy content. When Harry was seen so much as smiling at a waitress in a restaurant, or greeting an old female schoolmate on the street, the Prophet screamed annoying and corny phrases such as 'BOY WONDER MEETS GIRL' or 'HE-WHO-LOVED AT LAST'. Eventually, as the years progressed, the Wizarding media had begun to realise that Harry was not doing anything interesting whatsoever with his life, and public interest in him dwindled, at which point Harry made the transition back to the Wizarding world and entertained jobs as a herpetologist and a Seeker for a low-profile Quidditch team, among others.

Although the papers had often spoken about Harry's love life, it was practically non-existant. He had had several dates with Ginny before he started spending time in the Muggle world, but without the background dramatics of war and the uncontrolled passion of teenage relationships, they found that they had very little in common to speak about. Ginny, being a fiery and headstrong girl, had decided to try and mask this awkwardness with physical relations, which, after many sloppy kisses and fumbling gropes, had lead to a very embarrassing incident in which Harry couldn't maintain hardness, despite concentrating very hard on her ample naked body. They had parted ways very soon after that, and she had fallen into the arms of Cornan McLaggen, who Harry therefore hated even though he had no sexual feelings for Ginny. Ron and Hermione had often marched Harry out to Muggle nightclubs with the intent of him finding a girl, but for some reason he had no interest in women at all. He was not averse to looking at their breasts or large bums, but the thought of talking to a girl, or having intimate relations, was one that he did not have any time for. Sure, he had been kissed now and then by girls who had made the first move, but it hardly excited him. There was only one girl that he had met at a bar that he thought about for any amount of time after, and her name was Chloé. She had physically ran into him as he was walking into the bar, and after she had apologised and he had struck up conversation, he had found her to be very mysterious and puzzling in nature.

If there was one thing in life that Harry was passionate about, it was a mystery. When he had first moved into his own place, he had all but ignored the TV set in the corner of his sitting room, as it reminded him of the one that the Dursleys had owned. One night he had switched it on out of sheer boredom and instantly got hooked on a crime and mystery programme, watching it almost daily ever since. It made sense; all throughout school Harry had blindly jumped into mysteries, like he had with the puzzle of what Snape's intentions were in first year, and how he had obsessively followed Draco Malfoy in sixth. A good puzzle enthralled him, and he would not rest at night until he had figured it out. Ever since the Great War had ended, truly important mysteries were few and far between, so he had settled with trying to figure out people's back stories or problems wherever he worked, and it was no coincedence that he would soon leave the job as soon as he had figured them out.

Harry's was currently in between jobs, so in his usual fashion he had switched on the TV once he arrived home from the house of one the many branches of the Weasleys, and after a quick 'Incendio' towards his fireplace, he had settled down on his couch to watch the latest episode of CSI. He had been sat peacefully for a good couple of minutes before he noticed a strange green flicker every couple of seconds in his fire. He stared at it for a few seconds before getting up and coming to sit in front of the fireplace. Whatever magic was at work seemed to detect his presence, and the flames started to flicker into a shape that he recognised as Hermione's face, who began to speak quickly and urgently.

"Harry, it's me, I've been trying to get hold of you for a while, are you there?"

Harry shuffled closer, into view.

"Yeah 'Mione. I'm here. What's up?"

"Oh good, Harry. Listen." She seemed almost out of breath, and her eyes were wide. "I need you to come here right now. Please, Harry. Ron's in trouble."

The words took a while to sink into Harry's brain, but when they did he jumped up instantly and grabbed some Floo powder from the little white dish above the fireplace. When he looked back down, Hermione's face had disappeared, and he wasted no time in throwing the powder onto the flames and waited impatiently for them to turn emerald green. Harry stepped up onto the coals, feeling a warming sensation tickling his legs, and barked, "Woodgate Cottage!"

The seconds of spinning seemed to take hours, and he had grown very anxious by the time he landed, quite ungracefully, on the floor of Ron and Hermione's quaint home. As he got up and brushed soot from his clothes, he saw Hermione stop her pacing and run towards him, grabbing him by the arms.

"Oh, you're here! Harry, I don't know what to do! You were the only person I could call, I need your help!"

Harry gently took hold of her arms and looked into her fretful eyes.

"It's ok, calm down. Of course I'll help, you know that. You need to tell me what's happened. Where's Ron?" The anxiety had crept into his voice, as his words took on a breathless quality, and his voice rose a little at the end. He was trying to stay calm, but he had never seen Hermione acting so irrational, and it scared him. She blinked and took a great breath, before she exhaled in a stream of words.

"Ron went out last night to go and do some individual investigation on a house that's been in the Auror files for a few years now, a big manor house near the outskirts of Hogsmeade that no one goes near, apparently. No one has been there in years! The Head Auror thinks its an unimportant case so he hasn't sent anyone but Ron noticed a few disturbances around the area and wanted to go check it out. He doesn't like the Head Auror, you see, he doesn't trust him, so he went by himself. I told him it was a bad idea! He said he'd send a Patronus if he were in danger, but he made me swear that I wouldn't tell anyone but you! I should have told you sooner, obviously, but I've been so busy with Rose... Anyway, he sent me a Patronus about an hour ago, and I'm so scared, Harry. He's been acting so strangely recently, and I have a feeling that this isn't just a simple case of a hidden curse gone amiss... Please hurry, go and find him and figure this out! I would go with you but it's too late to drop Rose off anywhere and.." She did not say it but Harry could tell that she did not want to go so that in case it were something extremely dangerous, Rose would still at least have one parent. "I did some research on the manor house and it is at the far east from Hogsmeade, bordering the Forbidden Forest. I've read that there is a hidden entrance to it, but I don't know any more than that!"

Harry was stunned with this sudden intake of information. Hermione had obviously been anxiously awaiting his arrival, and had thought that speech through. Harry would do anything to help his best friends, but the mystery of the incident had doubled his curiousity tenfold, and he felt a little like his old self as he began to form a plan in his head of where he would begin.

"I'll go right now, I've got my wand and my cloak with me. I think that's all I need."

Hermione turned to the dining table behind her and picked up a small bag which Harry recognised as the magical bag she had used whilst they were tracking Horcruxes many years ago. She handed it to Harry, and said, "I've put a few things in there that you might need, food, medicine, potions, that sort of thing. I really hope you don't need them."

Harry nodded and then accepted a broken child's toy from her, one that appeared to belong to Rose at some point. She attempted to smile at him and drew her wand.

"This portkey will take you to Hogsmeade. Thank you Harry. Please get Ron home safe for me."

With two short taps of her wand, the toy began to glow bright blue, and he felt the familiar jerk behind his navel as he was whisked away into thin air.

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Please review, it would be much appreciated!


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